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[edit] ISBN conversion programs

Hello Misterbisson, the thing that might be interesting is a program that is provided in source form that is as *complete* as is converterpub.asp in the sense of enforcing the full ISBN spec. The one you submitted was not (so far as I can tell) in source form, and it doesn't even verify the checksum on the ISBN-10 that you give it. (It doesn't complain if you fiddle with the last digit). Unfortunately the *complete* ISBN verifier and converter would be somewhat large, because the complete list of publisher codes would be in it. Any ISBN that contains a bad publisher code is invalid, and if we found such a code used in Wikipedia, we would mark it as bad. For instance, nearly all ISBNs that begin with 6 are invalid.

Anything that Wikipedia would point its users to as a web service for ISBN conversion would probably need to be bullet-proofed and be backed up by a major institution such as isbn.org that is in effect a standards organization. Your private web site is not likely to be perceived to be credible enough for that use.

The recent problem with Wikipedia's ISBN page is that it has a large section for external links, and everybody in the world has been dropping their favorite link in there. It may be necessary to refactor the page so that it doesn't present such a tempting target. EdJohnston 19:37, 5 October 2006 (UTC)